Send this Article to a Friend
Muslims urged to examine the timing of cartoons
Staff Reporter
"Destruction of the shrine in Samarra wrongly attributed to Sunni extremists"
OUTCRY: Muslims demonstrate at Thousand Lights mosque in Chennai on Monday, against the publication of cartoons in the Western media. â Photo: S.R. Raghunathan
CHENNAI: Muslims should examine the timing of and possible motivation for publishing the cartoons on the Prophet Mohammed in the western media, Ghulam Mohammed Mehdi Khan, Chief Shia Khazi, said on Monday. He noted that the recent violent reaction against the insulting cartoons might have caused concern.
While Muslims should show restraint, "it is also necessary to examine the timing of and possible motivation for these cartoons. Using pretended freedom of speech and Press, some western media are taking advantage of the demonisation of Islam, to insult the Holy Prophet... and provoke extremist violence to reinforce the image of fanatical Muslims," he said after a protest by Muslims held at the Thousand Lights mosque. The destruction of the sacred shrine in Samarra in Iraq was also wrongly attributed to Iraqi Sunni extremists, threatening to inflame violence, a release from Imam-e-Jummah quoting the Chief Khazi said.
Western countries could learn from India and particularly Tamil Nadu, where there was respect for all religions, the statement said. Hundreds of Muslims participated in the protest and raised slogans raised against the visit of American President George W. Bush.
<b>'No' to impending Islamic Republic of India </b>
<i>V Sundaram
February 26, 2006</i>
http://www.indiacause.com/columns/OL_060226.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Mahatma Gandhi declared that a bad self-government is better than a good
foreign or alien government. We have now reached a stage in our national
history when the majority of the Hindus in India numbering over 800 million should
realise that a bad `non-secular` BJP government rooted in Hindutva and
deriving its inspiration from our age-old Hindu culture and tradition is better
than the so-called `secular` UPA government which is in the stranglehold of
Sonia`s Congress party and the motley conglomeration of Communist parties - an
immoral marriage of political convenience which only poses an imminent threat
to the integrity and unity of India. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
03-01-2006, 09:43 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-01-2006, 09:57 PM by acharya.)
March 6, 2006 issue - The buzz in the financial circles a few months ago was that every man and his dog could raise money to invest in India. Now the thinking is that a man is no longer required.
India lies at the heart of a boom. Of the $150 billion that has flowed into the stock markets of developing nations since 2002, nearly a fifth has gone to India. It is now one of the most expensive emerging markets in the world, with an average price-to-earnings ratio of 15. India is thus the hottest of the hot markets.
For sure, it has critical mass. India ranks as one of the three largest emerging markets in terms of economic size and stock-market capitalization, with both breadth and depth on offer. There are about 100 companies in India with a market value of more than $1 billion. Foreigners have invested in more than 1,000 Indian companiesâa record for any country outside the United States. These investors think the opportunities presented in South Asia's biggest economy are unlimited, given its potent mix of brainpower and large scale.
The working assumption among many foreign investors is that India will continue to crank out growth rates of 7 to 8 percent, which the very efficient corporate sector will translate into earnings growth of 15 percent a year for eternity. Analysts vie to predict how fast India will rise as an economic power, and how soon it will regain the might it wielded two centuries ago, when it accounted for 20 percent of world economic output.
The only problem is that the future rarely plays out as predicted, particularly in the developing world, where countries have systematically overpromised and underdelivered. These societies tend to push reform in hard times and fritter away gains when the pressure abates. This cycle has played out repeatedly in commodity-dependent countries, and helps explain why per capita income in many Latin American and African countries has not risen for decades.
India is unlikely to suffer any such fate. It has unleashed enough entrepreneurial energy to ensure that even in the worst-case scenario, economic expansion will slip back only to its past 25-year average of 5.5 percent. However, given the expectations, that growth trajectory would feel like a recession to many investors.
The question, then, is whether current growth rates are sustainable. The profile of the Indian economy and equity market suggests that the current boom is born of global trends. The acceleration in the growth rate has been accompanied by a decline in inflation and a rally in the equity market that mirror the experience of the average emerging market in recent years. When the class of emerging markets fades, India, too, is likely to lose some of its sparkle.
Even more troubling, Indian policymakers are showing the same symptoms of cyclical dithering that have stopped many emerging markets from realizing their potential. With blockbuster economic growth not leading to political victories for the last ruling coalition, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, or the present Congress-led regime, the political class seems to have lost all faith in economic reforms. Instead, populism is on the ascendant.
The Indian government has adopted a tax-and-spend bias, hoping this will help Congress regain the political ground it has been losing at the national and state levels, despite the economic boom. Its showcase policy guarantees one hundred days of employment a year to one person in every rural household. The government would be better off redirecting these wasteful subsidies, worth billions of dollars a year, to build the roads and bridges required to spread real growth to the hinterland.
Whereas the fortunes of one part of India continue to rise at a frenetic pace, many Indians are still reeling under water crises, power shortages, bureaucratic harassment and utter lawlessness. Some estimates suggest that the government has effectively lost control in nearly 20 percent of the country's 584 districts. Those districts are instead dominated by ultraleft militant groups known as Naxals. Most large cities face regular power cuts, many villages have no electricity and business surveys show that lack of power is likely to become an even bigger infrastructure bottleneck. Logically, the power sector would be an urgent target for reform. Well, not in India. There is little political willpower to crack down on power theft, and politicians still think doling out free power to farmers is a vote winner.
It's always easiest to grow quickly from a low starting point, and given the depth of India's poverty, it should be able to at least match China as the world's fastest growing economy. But to hit that paceâabout 10 percentâIndia needs to shed the cyclical habits of other emerging markets. It needs to reform even in good times, rather than falling prey to populism.
Sharma is the co-head of global emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Agenda for internal security by Varun Gandhi</b>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.organiser.org/dynamic...20&page=14
<b>Agenda for internal security</b>
<b>The first tattva </b>
<i>By Varun Gandhi</i>
Over the past millennium, India has been continuously invaded and her cultural representations devastated. Indians at the time did not look beyond their immediate neighbourhood and failed to augment their military strength. They had an insular domestic policy, and did not review military developments and social changes occurring beyond their horizon.
<b>Modern India stands tall among the worldâs great nations, but the thousand years old mentality of military nonchalance continues to influence the non-violent Indian mind. On the one hand, Pakistan spends nearly five per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence and China nearly $ 70 billion (Rs 308 lakh crore), while India on the other hand spends a conservative 2.9 per cent of her GDP or $ 18.86 billion (Rs 83,000 crore). The Indian reluctance to aggressively build-up military strength has haunted India in the past millennium, and will continue to haunt her in the new one as well, if Indiaâs policies do not change. </b>
<b>In the Art of War, Sun Tzu, the Chinese General considers security preparedness to be of vital importance to the state. He views it as a matter of life and death for the state, an important subject of inquiry which cannot be neglected</b>. India is surrounded by nations that have a past history of aggression against her. They have seized her territories, continue to aggressively arm and rapidly modernise their armies. Even though relations may improve, nonetheless the military arming goes on unabated. A non-violent India cannot afford to sit back quietly and remain a mute spectator. India should confront these scenarios, not from the docile platform of the past 50 to 60 years, but from a new dominant stage of her own making. India needs a dynamic agenda for her national security. An agenda that is bi-focused to take care of Indiaâs immediate needs, yet cater to a far focussed vision. It should be strategic and dominant by nature.
In a 1909 essay titled, âThe place of India in the Empireâ, the former British Viceroy, Lord Curzon of Kedleston writes, âIt is obvious, indeed that the master of India, must, under modern conditions, be the greatest power in the Asiatic Continent, and therefore, it may be added, in the world. The central portion of India, its magnificent resources, its teeming multitude of men, its great trading harbours, its reserve of military strength, supplying an army always in a high state of efficiency, and capable of being hurled at a momentâs notice upon any point either of Asia or Africa. All these are assets of precious value. On the West, India must exercise a predominant influence over the destinies of Persia and Afghanistan. On the North, it can veto any rival in Tibet; on the North-East and East it can exert great pressure upon China, and it is one of the guardians of the autonomous existence of Suam. On the high seas it commands the routes to Australia, and to the China Sea.â Of course, it was in British Indiaâs interest to arm India militarily to protect their trading routes. Nonetheless, this statement reflects upon the dream of patriotic Indians, who have long desired a more assertive India. However, this legacy of imperialist Anglo-Saxon tradition was not followed by an Independent India believing in the principles of non-violence and non-alignment.
The failure of India in creating a strategic culture was suited to her extraordinary influence in her neighbourhood, but now a new agenda for the 21st century is required. India must step out of her self-imposed limitations arising out of post-Partition geography, and define her role prominently in her neighbourhood. The rise of India in this century is intricately linked to various factors that include her economic development, social stability, fiscal expansion towards infrastructural development, raising the human development index of her masses, and importantly increasing her security preparedness.
<b>I would divide Indiaâs security agenda into five basic elementsâthe panch-tattvas. They are internal security, external security, dominance and missile arsenal, border security, and intelligence gathering. The most potent attack is an internal attack that weakens the State from within. For an internally weakened State, external aggression is an expected reality. India needs to be strengthened from within. Therefore internal security becomes our first tattva. </b>
The greatest threats to Indiaâs internal security are from the rise of extremism propagated by agencies across our borders, the spread of the Naxalites, the demographic morphing of Indiaâs North-East by illegal migrants from Bangladesh, deterioration of our urban police force, estrangement of the public from the police due to police cruelties, and the increase in organised crimes. The attack on the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, the bomb-blasts in Mumbaiâs Gateway of India, in Delhiâs markets, and the attack on Indian Parliament highlight a nefarious agenda. What can India do to prevent these occurrences? Some would say better intelligence gathering. But no amount of intelligence gathering saved the US from 9/11, or Israel from the suicide attacks. Therefore, India must evolve a strategy of immediate counter response, everytime Indian interests or citizens are targetted.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
03-03-2006, 10:14 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-03-2006, 10:17 AM by acharya.)
In a 1909 essay titled, âThe place of India in the Empireâ, the former British Viceroy, Lord Curzon of Kedleston writes, âIt is obvious, indeed that the master of India, must, under modern conditions, be the greatest power in the Asiatic Continent, and therefore, it may be added, in the world. The central portion of India, its magnificent resources, its teeming multitude of men, its great trading harbours, its reserve of military strength, supplying an army always in a high state of efficiency, and capable of being hurled at a momentâs notice upon any point either of Asia or Africa.
All these are assets of precious value. On the West, India must exercise a predominant influence over the destinies of Persia and Afghanistan. <span style='color:red'>On the North, it can veto any rival in Tibet; on the North-East and East it can exert great pressure upon China, and it is one of the guardians of the autonomous existence of Suam. </span>On the high seas it commands the routes to Australia, and to the China Sea.â Of course, it was in British Indiaâs interest to arm India militarily to protect their trading routes.
Nonetheless, this statement reflects upon the dream of patriotic Indians, who have long desired a more assertive India. However, this legacy of imperialist Anglo-Saxon tradition was not followed by an Independent India believing in the principles of non-violence and non-alignment.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Blasts rock Kozhikode; threat to blow up cinema halls</b>
Friday March 3 2006 16:48 IST
Agencies
KOZHIKODE: Tension gripped the main business centre of Malabar region following suspected terrorist attack that rocked the busy Mavoor road area and threat by unidentified assailants to blow up three cinema halls at various places the city.
The first explosion took place just outside the KSRTC bus stand around 1245 hrs in the busy Mavoor Road area and another followed within minutes inside the private bus stand, located adjacent to the state-owned bus stand, police said.
While police were caught unawares when the first blast occurred, adequate security measures were taken at the private bus stand, which averted a major disaster as the explosion took place at an area where the buses were to arrive, they said.
City Police Commissioner H Venkitesh, who visited the spots along with district collector Rachana Shah, said samples collected from the blast site have been sent for expert examination. He, however, refused to divulge more details on the incidents.
Security has been beefed up at the Railway Station and places like S M Street, the main market area in the city.
In a related incident, Calicut Times, an eveninger, told the police that an anonymous caller informed them just few minutes before the blasts that bombs had been planted in <b>several places in the city as a sequel to Marad communal violence that claimed nine lives on May two, 2003.</b>
Meanwhile, miscreants threatened to blow up Kairali, Ganga and Apasara theatres in the city during the day forcing the authorities to impose strict security arrangements, police said.
The warning had been communicated through a <b>hand bill pasted on the compound wall of a mosque</b>, police said adding that search operations were on in main thoroughfares, railway and bus stations in and around the city.
As many as 47 gelatine sticks were found in a packet deposited by an unidentified person in the cloak room of the KSRTC bus stand a couple of weeks ago.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
03-04-2006, 01:12 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-04-2006, 01:45 AM by ramana.)
Knowing Lord Curzon's vison about the primacy of India, the LSE and other lefties deluded the Indian elite from reaching the true potential. It is only now that Bush has realized the same vision and a new India is being unchained. However the DIE stillin charge dont understand the importance of India that the freedom movement forged. This India is bigger and much greater potetnial than the one that Curzon had to deal with.
I find it interesting that he said this in 1909 ie one year after Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj and four years after partition of Bengal and two years before the Imperial Durbar that transferred teh capilat from Calcutta to New Delhi.
I also read the Varun Gandhi's piece about the budget priorities and say he on right track. India's development is securing its internal security.
Acharya for you.
Gresham College lectures archive
Very important as Curzon thought of India as the backbone of the British Empire.
Lord Curzon's Romanes lecture on Frontiers
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Security beefed up at porous Indo-Nepal Border following explosive recovery </b>
Indo-Nepal Border, India: A chance seizure of heavy explosives laden on a truck meant for Maoists in Nepal earlier this week, has led to massive hold-ups of commercial vehicles on the porous Indo-Nepal Border. Hundreds of trucks remained stranded for the second day on Thursday as Nepalese police insisted on off-loading every single truck coming into its territory and allowing them to pass after strict checking.
Serpentine queues of Indian trucks heading towards Nepal was seen on the Indo-Nepal Border post, as drivers got increasingly restive with the delay. Some drivers complained the search was "highly superficial" in nature and they was causing an unnecessary delay for them.
"We have brought furniture here. Goods that need to be checked are allowed to leave after only a superficial checking but they are unnecessarily troubling us," Mahendra Kumar, a truck driver from Gorakhpur, said. Other drivers wondered where Nepalese custom officials would get the required space to unload to check every vehicle, some of which were carrying hazardous goods.
"They need all the space to offload these goods also. I don't think the people are going to bear all the dust that will come out," said Vijyender. On Tuesday, Nepalese Police seized a huge quantity of arms and explosives from a border district apparently smuggled from Jharkhand, a naxal-affected State.
<b>Officials said the seizure hinted at a growing nexus between Maoists in both the countries. The explosives included about 10,000 electronic detonators, 475 kilograms of Neogel and 2500 kilograms of Gelatin, in what is considered to be the biggest ever seizure in the region. </b>
The explosives were seized from a truck, bearing Indian registration, at the Sanauli border with India. The explosives were hidden inside two layers of coal.
Ends VVNNNN <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Jaswant and Lord Curzon's legacy
By C. Raja Mohan
NEW DELHI, JAN. 27. Is Lord Curzon of Kedleston back in political favour? Two very different men recently invoked his ideas to define India's new standing in the world.
The first was Henry Kissinger, a former American Secretary of State who was talking about India's role in the region stretching from Aden to Singapore. The second was none other than the External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh.
At a conclave organised by the India Today magazine last week, Mr. Singh quoted extensively from Lord Curzon's celebrated 1907 Romanes lecture on `Frontiers'. Taking off from Lord Curzon's discussion on the diplomacy of fixing physical frontiers among competing powers at the turn of the 20th century, he was leading to a discourse on the new frontiers that Indian diplomacy must conquer.
Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, Viceroy of India (1898- 1905) and British Foreign Secretary (1919-24), might only be mentioned in our text books as the man who partitioned Bengal. But within the foreign policy elite, he is recalled as the man who outlined the grandest of the strategic visions for India.
* * *
Why should the imperialist vision of Lord Curzon - outlined nearly a century ago for British India - be of any significance to New Delhi's foreign policy? Some diplomatists suggest that the political context might have changed, but geography has not. If geography is destiny, India has a pivotal role in the Indian Ocean and its littoral, irrespective of who rules New Delhi.
While many strategists lament that New Delhi has failed to live up to the potential of Lord Curzon's vision, others insist it is outmoded. They argue that his ideas were drawn with reference to the imperial extension in India of the world's then sole superpower, Britain. New Delhi's strategic condition, they suggest, is not that of London in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
While Indians disagree on the value of the Viceroy's legacy, many in the neighbourhood, in particular Pakistan, have always accused the Indian foreign policy of Curzonian ambitions. For them, independent India's foreign policy has always been a continuation of the British imperial legacy. They believe Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors have only couched the ambition in different words.
The challenge for New Delhi, in balance, is to retain the essence of Curzon's vision that is rooted in India's geography while discarding the hegemonic aspects of it. As India grows stronger, it will inevitably called upon to play a larger role in the Indian Ocean littoral. The real question is not whether but what kind of a role?
* * *
In his book `The Place of India in the Empire', published in 1909, Lord Curzon talks of India's geopolitical significance. ``On the West, India must exercise a predominant influence over the destinies of Persia and Afghanistan; on the north, it can veto any rival in Tibet; on the north-east and last it can exert great pressure upon China, and it is one of the guardians of the autonomous existence of Siam,'' he wrote.
However, much one might dream about India's strategic future, this is not the kind of role India can play now. Nor is the world going to parcel out the Indian Ocean littoral to India. New Delhi can, however, significantly contribute towards the advancement of the region through political cooperation with other great powers.
That precisely is what Mr. Kissinger was talking about when he referred to the ``parallel interests'' of India and the United States from Aden to Singapore. These shared interests include energy security, safeguarding the sea lanes, political stability, economic modernisation and religious moderation.
* * *
Lord Curzon's emphasis on the value of fixing boundaries, conceived in the context of expanding empires, remains very relevant for India. Settled boundaries can make India's frontiers into zones of economic cooperation rather than bones of political contention.
The assessment that ``frontiers, which have so frequently and recently been the cause of war, are capable of being converted into the instruments and evidences of peace'' is even more true in a globalising world. By leaving territorial and boundary disputes with its key neighbours - Pakistan and China - unresolved for so long, India has tied itself down.
Lord Curzon seems to have been aware of the tendency to avoid boundary settlements. ``In Asia,'' he wrote, ``there has always been a strong instinctive aversion to the acceptance of fixed boundaries arising partly from the nomadic habits of the people, partly from the dislike of precise arrangements that is typical of the oriental mind, but more still from the idea that in the vicissitudes of fortune more is to be expected from an unsettled than from a settled frontier.''
Can India take Lord Curzon's advice on frontiers and seek a final resolution of the Kashmir problem with Pakistan and the boundary dispute with China? There may be a historic opportunity for the Government of Atal Behari Vajpayee to move decisively on both the fronts.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Jaundiced vision of secularists </b>
Pioneer.com
KPS Gill
The Indian politician, it appears, is entirely uneducable, incapable of learning from history. Today, virtually all the parties in India are divided into two broad camps - the 'communal' and the 'secular'. <b>The former category, including virtually all minority community political parties - such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Hind, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the Akali Dal, and the constituent groups within the 'Sangh Parivar' - are explicitly communal in their orientation, seeking a crystallisation of their own identity through a polarisation against others.</b>
<b>But the 'secular' parties are, in fact, anything but that;</b> they practice an insidious and opportunistic 'reverse communalism' that has historically done incalculable harm to the nation, and continues to undermine India's progress, security and stability.
An interesting manifestation was the anti-Bush demonstrations orchestrated during the American President's brief visit. The most vociferous protests among the 'secular' parties came from the Left formations, particularly the CPI(M) - a coalition partner in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Government. They have, of course, the right to protest and to project their perspectives - though the incontinence of language and the crudity of attacks launched by some very senior leaders is poor testimony to their cause and their conviction.
<b>What is significant, however, is that, despite the extraordinary 'cooperation' of the media - specially the proliferating television news channels, who held tiny crowds of a few dozen, and occasionally of a couple of hundred in very tight frames, helping substitute an artificial frenzy for numbers - it was clear that the 'secular' protestors had rather poor support</b>.
Failing to mobilise adequate support from their own ideological fraternity, the CPI-M had no compunctions in falling back on the stratagem of a 'multi-party' demonstration that relied overwhelmingly on the capacities for communal mobilisation of the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind, and it was only through the efforts of the latter that the substantial gathering at the Ramlila grounds at Delhi could be cobbled together.
A look at the various photographs and video images in the media demonstrates that <b>the crowd at the Ramlila grounds was overwhelmingly Muslim - with hardly a peppering of 'secular' protestors. Much of the ire of the communally mobilised protestors was directed against the 'Danish cartoons' and other issues somewhat distanced from the context of President Bush's visit to India.</b>
Critically, however, when 'secular' parties hitch their wagon to communal mass mobilisation on emotive sectarian issues and an 'Islamic' anti-Bush platform, they participate in a dangerous and subversive trend, contributing directly to the greater radicalisation of sections of the Muslim community, and enlarging the centrality, within the national political space, of communal formations such as the Jamiat. This is not the first time that the Communists have made an ideologically irreconcilable compromise with communal forces, as their (and the Congress's) extended partnership with the IUML in Kerala demonstrates.
<b>The conduct of the top leadership of the ruling Congress in the run-up to State Assembly election in Assam is another case in point, and will have disastrous consequences for the security and stability, not only of this State, but also for the wider Northeast, where illegal Bangaldeshi migrants are continuously expanding their presence.</b>
The pronouncements on bringing amendments to the Foreigners' Act to 'protect' the Muslims - including the very large number of illegal aliens in the State who have acquired voting rights and are courted by the Congress as a vote-bank - fall into the same category of misconceived communal manipulation with disastrous long-term consequences. Once again, the Congress is being misled by immediate electoral calculations to act directly against the national interest.
<b>In Uttar Pradesh, we see a deafening silence among the 'secular parties' on the issue of the 'reward' of Rs 51 crore announced by a Minister for anyone who 'brings him the head' of the Danish cartoonists who had dared to caricature the Prophet</b>. Interestingly, while 'secular' parties invent convoluted justifications for the failure to implement the country's law for this act of incitement to crime, and <b>while some of the Minister's coreligionists flock to congratulate him for his 'courageous' defence of Islam, the Organisation of Islamic Countries has seen fit to condemn all such 'fatwas' and announcements calling for the death of the Danish cartoonists as 'un-Islamic</b>.
The fact is, all major 'secular' parties in India have had the consolidation of the 'Muslim vote-bank' as one of the crucial elements of their political and electoral agenda, and they have tended to believe that supporting the extremist - rather than the moderate - Muslim stance is more productive in delivering the 'Muslim vote'. <b>The 'Hindu vote' is believed to be split across the various national and regional formations along caste, language and parochial lines, as well as between the 'secular' and 'communal' camps.</b> It has, consequently, been accepted - outside the Sangh Parivar -<b> that communal mass mobilisation of Hindus is either not possible, given the fragmented nature of the community, or that it is, in some sense, not politically desirable</b>.
Despite overwhelming evidence that the Muslims are also an enormously diversified community across regions and classes in India, the same considerations have not guided perspectives on the country's principal minority. <b>Interestingly, communal Hindu formations are also increasingly vulnerable to this intellectual blindness - witness, for instance, Mr LK Advani's and, more recently, Mr Jaswant Singh's pronouncements on Mohammad Ali Jinnah.</b>
This blindness has afflicted Indian politics for decades, and the affliction has extended to some of the nation's greatest leaders. Gandhi, the Mahatma on so much else, was utterly wrong in his orientation to the Muslims and this was abundantly clear even in his first major and disastrous intervention in the country's politics, the Khilafat Movement.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>The then famous Ali Brothers, who are now entirely forgotten by all but a few historians specialising in the period, with whom Gandhi formed a partnership of dishonour to lead the Movement, openly stated that a Muslim thief was better than Gandhi, simply because he was Muslim; Gandhi swallowed the insult in silence. When there were rumours that the Afghans could invade India, one of the brothers, Mohammad Ali, declared: "If the Afghans invaded India to wage holy war, the Indian Mohammadans are not only bound to join them but also to fight the Hindus if they refuse to cooperate with them." Gandhi had no comment on this. Worse, Gandhi, the apostle of ahimsa, repeatedly justified Muslim violence.
In the wake of the collapse of the Khilafat movement, the Moplah Rebellion broke out in Kerala, with Muslim mobs inflicting untold savagery and rapine on Hindus. Gandhi first denied these atrocities and later, confronted with incontrovertible evidence, described the Moplahs as "god fearing" people and declared that they "are fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a manner they consider as religious".</span>
It is these double standards that created India's eventual partition. Regrettably, they survived that catastrophe, and continue to dominate India's 'secular' polity even today. There is, in fact, a comprehensive failure among the Indian political classes - across ideological and partisan boundaries - to understand the minority psyche.
The backwardness and abysmal poverty of the Muslim community in India even 58 years after Independence is a symbol both of the decline of its own leadership, and of the bankruptcy of the exploitative vote-bank politics of secular formations. You cannot fill people's stomachs with religion and silence their real needs - health, education, productive capacities and skills - with dogma. This, tragically, remains the unqualified agenda and objective of India's political leadership.
<b>But the tokenism of 'representation' in the Army and Government services and the continuous manipulation of communal sentiments will go no way in correcting these distortions. The solution lies in non-discriminatory efforts for the development of all the poor in India, and that includes the country's minorities.</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Muslims, Hindus clash over demolished mosque in Goa
Sanvodem, March. 4 (AP): Several hundred Hindu protesters stormed a police station in a town in the coastal state of Goa on Saturday, demanding the release of 37 men arrested during violent Hindu-Muslim clashes in the area.
The protesters defied a police curfew imposed after three days of clashes, sparked when suspected Hindu extremists destroyed a mosque in the town of Sanvodem.
Five people, including three police officers, were wounded on Saturday as police tired to repel the rioters with batons, said Police Superintendent Satkhar Prabhubesai.
The demonstrators responded by bombarding police with rocks and beating officers.
An Associated Press reporter saw several men beat a policeman unconscious with rocks and sticks and then steal his gun. The Hindu mob then rampaged through the town, looting Muslim shops and burning vehicles and buildings.
An overturned car lay in a pile of debris in front of the police station.
Relations between India's Hindus and minority Muslims are uneasy and often flare into violence.
On Friday a Muslim protest in the northern city of Lucknow against the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush, turned into a Muslim-Hindu riot in which four people were shot dead and 20 wounded.
However, religious clashes in Goa, a former Portuguese colony and one of India's premier tourist attractions, are rare.
The violence took place some 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of the tourist beaches on India's west coast.
The unrest started on Wednesday after suspected Hindu extremists destroyed a prayer room in the mosque, which was said to be illegally built on government land.
As Muslim groups gathered to protest, Hindus rallied against them and completely destroyed the mosque on Friday night.
Police used tear gas and fired shots in the air to disperse the rioters and detained the 37 men, said Ujjwal Mishra, the district police chief.
The protesters left the police station later on Saturday after Hindu politicians intervened to secure the release of the men.
However, the area remained tense and more than 300 police officers were deployed in the streets of the town, Prabhubesai said.
Anti-Bush Muslim rally a warning to Hindus: Uddhav
Raigad (Maharashtra), March. 4 (PTI): Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray, today said the anti-Bush protests in Mumbai and other parts of the country were "actually a warning to the entire Hindu community."
Stating that he was not against Muslims, Uddhav said he was only opposed to those who espouse the cause of Pakistan.
"I am not against all Muslims, but against only those who espouse the cause of Pakistan," he said addressing a rally to celebrate Sena victory in Srivardhan Assembly by-election last month.
"Why do not not these people protest against Pakistan?" he asked.
Uddhav was addressing Sena workers at the base the historic Raigad Fort where Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was coronated as the sovereign Maratha State on June 6, 1674.
<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Mar 5 2006, 03:12 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Mar 5 2006, 03:12 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->
Anti-Bush Muslim rally a warning to Hindus: Uddhav
Raigad (Maharashtra), March. 4 (PTI): Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray, today said the anti-Bush protests in Mumbai and other parts of the country were "actually a warning to the entire Hindu community."
Stating that he was not against Muslims, Uddhav said he was only opposed to those who espouse the cause of Pakistan.
"I am not against all Muslims, but against only those who espouse the cause of Pakistan," he said addressing a rally to celebrate Sena victory in Srivardhan Assembly by-election last month.
"Why do not not these people protest against Pakistan?" he asked.
Uddhav was addressing Sena workers at the base the historic Raigad Fort where Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was coronated as the sovereign Maratha State on June 6, 1674.
[right][snapback]47818[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Time will prove that the biggest blunder has been committed by Gandhi in Indian history by not completing the exchange of population during partition.
<b>STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO RAJYA SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 70 FOR 22.2.2006 REGARDING MAOIST VIOLENCE</b>
Total (12 States)
2003 Police Stations affected -- 518
2004 Police Stations affected --- 517
2005 Police Stations affected --- 509
Total No. of Police station -2005 -- 8695
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Tarlochan flays TV channel's programme on Khalistan </b>
Pioneer News Service / New Delhi
Rajya Sabha member and former chairman of the National Commission for Minorities Tarlochan Singh on Monday asked <b>Home Minister Shivraj Patil to initiate inquiry into a controversial Zee Television programme on Khalistan.</b>
Demanded action against the channel for raking up the issue just to enhance its TRP ratings, Mr Singh said,
<b>"This is a highly condemnable programme. An attempt is being made to bring the Sikhs back to disrepute,"</b> Mr Singh demanded, while asking for a code of conduct for media so that they don't misuse the freedom of expression provided by the constitution.
Raising this issue in the Rajya Sabha<b> Mr Singh alleged that the vice chancellor of a university in Punjab was also associated with the programme. He pointed out that the father of the vice chancellor even spoke to the channel and gave sound bites asserting the certainty of the formation of Khalistan. </b>
<b>"We requested the Home Minister to order an investigation into what was the immediate provocation behind such a news report on an issue which no longer exists in the Sikh mainstream. In fact, such news reports only give a platform to a handful of sidelined and frustrated separatists,"</b> Mr Singh said.
"We were really perturbed over the fact that the TV channel ran the interview of these kinds of disgruntled and frustrated persons and did not think it fit to contact or speak to any political party or Member of Parliament belonging to Punjab.<b> This kind of programme are not only anti-Sikh, anti-Punjab, but also anti-India</b>," he said. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When FOSA in USA had already started parading Sikhs against Hindus, agenda is very much clear.
<b>Naxals takeover train in Jharkhand</b>
Link
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Naxalites on Monday night stormed a passenger train between Kummandi and Hedegada in Jharkhand and took complete control of the train.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->He said the number of passengers held hostage may be anywhere between 200 and 400.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->www.financialexpress.com/..._id=120352
<b>Threat to blow up RSS' Delhi office </b>
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Posted online: Monday, March 13, 2006 at 1330 hours IST
NEW DELHI, MARCH 13: <b>Police evacuated a chamber housing Sangh mouthpiece 'Panchjanya' in the RSS office</b>, after a threat to blow it up on Monday.
Panchjanay Editor Tarun Vijay said that bomb disposal squads evacuated his office on the RSS' Keshav Kunj compound. The call that the Panchjanya office would be blown up on Monday, was received by an official of the debt recovery tribunal, which is also housed in the Keshav Kunj building at Jhandewalan, he said.
"Police are searching the entire compound," he said.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
All latest listening devices are now well placed. <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Gelatine at Rs 50 a stick at dhabas </b>
Deccan.com
Hyderabad, March 13: Detonators and banned gelatine sticks are being sold openly in wayside dhabas in the city outskirts. The âexplosives bazaarâ has been thriving because of the lack of vigil by the police. <b>In fact, the twin cities and Cyberabad have become major centres for illegal sale of explosives. The Maoists, ISI-sponsored groups and political factionalists can go shopping whenever they want.</b>
<b>An electric detonator costs Rs 4 in the illegal market and a gelatine stick is available for Rs 50. âDetonators are supplied by some people from Chityal area,â </b>said Shamshabad sub-inspector Sanjay Kumar. âEach detonator costs Rs 3.30 and they sell it for a meagre profit.â Deputy controller of explosives V.B. Minj said that the department was strictly monitoring licensed manufacturers of Chityal and Bhongir in Nalgonda district and Kukatpally and Bommala Ramaram.
âEvery manufacturer has to show us records by the 10th of each month,â said the deputy controller. âWe are strictly verifying the production, sale, possession and use of the explosives. There are no lapses from our end.â According to Mr Minj, it was for the police to deal with manufacturers without licence.
<b>âManufacturing gelatine sticks has been banned in the State,â he said. âWhat is available in the State is an Ammonium Nitrate-based compound and not gelatine.â </b>However, intelligence sources said that sale of gelatine sticks was still on in areas such as Rajendranagar, Shamshabad, Shamirpet, Hayatnagar, Chityal, Bhongir and Ghatkesar.
âTerror groups are procuring the material from the city outskirts,â said the intelligence official. âWe have information that Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed activists are also procuring explosives, apart from Maoists.â
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Source of Varansi Bomb ??????????
YSR's promise to rectify damaged platform of Mecca Masjid
Special Correspondent
Angry MIM members stall Question Hour on the issue
# Speaker disallows adjournment notice tabled by MIM members on the issue
# Members of Opposition parties pressed for discussion on the adjournment motion
# Principal Secretary Jannat Hussain to examine the issue immediately
HYDERABAD: Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy has assured agitated MIM members that the Government will inquire into the demolition of a platform carried out by Wakf Board officials in Mecca Masjid on Monday night and rectify the damage at the earliest.
Earlier angry MIM members stalled Question Hour proceedings for 15 minutes and three of them rushed into the well after Speaker K. R. Suresh Reddy disallowed the adjournment notice tabled by them on the issue. TDP, TRS, CPI (M), BJP and Janata Party members also pressed for discussion on the adjournment motions tabled by them on different subjects after the Chair rejected them.
Agreeing that the matter was serious, the Speaker told the MIM members that keeping in view the sentiments he would invite them and the Minister concerned to sort out the matter. Not satisfied by the Chair's assurance, the MIM members -- Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri, Mumtaz Ahmed Khan and Mohammed Moazam Khan -- rushed to the podium and waved black pieces of cloth.
Minorities Welfare Minister Mohammed Fareeduddin said that he too was concerned with the matter. It would be inquired into and action taken against officials.
When the MIM members continued to protest, Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy intervened and said that it was brought to his notice this morning. He said that he had asked Principal Secretary Jannat Hussain to examine the issue immediately. He said that the platform was being removed and a new one was being constructed. "I am getting the matter inquired into" he said and promised them that action would be taken if there were any mistakes on the part of the officials. The damage done would be rectified at the earliest.
|
